Somewhat disconnected?

Tomorrow is Christmas Eve and my mind is on all that last minute planning of food and festivities. I have loads of cooking to do tomorrow and still some presents to wrap.

The last 10 days has been somewhat difficult. The whole family, myself included, have been very closely physically connected with a nasty virus which has laid us all low, spluttering and coughing all over each other to ensure that we all stay connected as a close family unit🙂 We have seen doctors, ingested numerous pills and suspensions and are hopefully on the mend. I say hopefully, as on Sunday I am travelling to India (with my better half of course!) for a two week ruby wedding celebration! This is to be the trip of a lifetime! India is in my blood (in my terms) as I was born in Calcutta and lived there until I was eight years old. I can’t wait for this trip.

So my connections in the last week or two have literally been very physical! The interesting thing is that in the middle of all this coughing and spluttering, dosing up with antibiotics, trying to find some sort of food that we could all stomach etc. etc. I read an article in a daily paper (must have been The Times, as that is what we take!) about slow blogging. The article said that slow blogging had been a very popular idea, but that the person who had originally raised the whole idea of slow blogging now no longer blogged, presumably (according to the article) because people got fed up of waiting for the next blog post. This is an interesting dilemma – don’t you think? On the one hand we need time to be reflective, or simply to spend time away from the computer and on the other, if we don’t post on a fairly regular basis then no-one will read our posts anyhow!

I’m afraid what with illness and coming travel plans, my blogging will definitely be slow for the next few weeks, but hope to get up to speed again after that!

So I thought I would post now just to wish everyone who has visited my blog, and all those who have taken the time to comment, and all the friends I have made through this blog

Hi Jenny,
Sorry to learn that you and your family have not been well for this past week. I hope you are getting better now.
Congratulations on your ruby wedding celebration. Hope that you will have an enjoyable time in India in this coming week.
I am interested in learning about slow blogging. Have to think about the implications.. Hmmm. Wow… the proponent has stopped blogging altogether. I read from another blog that blogging is “dying”… out of 133 million bloggers only some 7 point something blogged in the past 12 weeks (couldn’t remember the exact figures)
I am impressed with your forward plan, and so won’t be surprised that “everyone else” would be busy at this festive moment, and thus not blogging that much.
Wishing you and your family a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

Viplav – Yes we will be in Delhi. We arrive there on 29th and will also be there for the night of the 30th, but move on to Agra on the 31st. So we are only in Delhi for a short time. If you are free (and of course you may not be) then maybe we could meet up on the evening of the 30th. We are staying at the Metropolitan Hotel – perhaps you could come and have a drink with us? It would be great to meet you.

My email is jenny.mackness@btopenworld.com. I couldn’t find your email address to send this message so hope you see it here. Hope we can meet up, but not to worry if you can’t make it.

Hope you’ve managed to cast off the flu and are enjoying your trip to India now. It sounds fantastic!

Regarding slow blogging and a fear of losing a reader base, in my view the core readers will stay with a blog no matter how long the period between posts. When I find a blogger I identify with – or better still, connect with – I’m happy to wait for the next post, so long as there is a next post.

I think this is particularly true in edu-blogging, since a core and critical aspect of the dialogue is on ensuring the content is as accurate and well-considered as possible. Sometimes building conceptual connections takes time, and I think we owe it to ourselves as learners to leave as much time as is necessary to maximise the learning experiences.

In terms of Connectivism I find too that bloggers can connect with one another through other means than just blogging – Twitter, forums, YouTube, commenting, and others – and these can do a great deal to maintain dialogue and interaction when not posting.

In fact I think it’s critical to diversify the nature of ways we maintain connections with others, because I think this can lead to more in-depth, quality connections and learning opportunities. In my case my blog is a critical component to my connections, but it’s not the only way I learn. YouTube, the blogs of others, news articles, face to face chats, Twitter, whitepapers and journals, etc – all contribute to my learning experiences.

This is why it’s so important, I think, that we look past the tools themselves and to recognise where they fit in our own personal learning networks or personal learning environments. The tools and tech helps us do a lot, certainly, but ultimately they’re facilitating mechanisms. In the case of my blog, it is just a vehicle to a wider purpose – in this case reflective writing, discussion, documentation, research and experimentation. So posts come as often as they need to.

I think that’s a sign of a good blog too in a way – the content is kept topical, relevant, and as in-depth as it needs to be to convey a point or concept at that moment.

Just my thoughts anyway – great topic🙂

On a completely different note, Happy Holidays and best of luck in the New Year!

Hope you all are feeling better! I wonder if the idea that the volume/frequency of blog posts determines readership is a leftover vision/fear from the era of highly structured and linear media. The nice thing about RSS is that once I have tapped into a feed, I can effortlessly access and read someone’s posts, no matter whether they’re frequent or sporadic. (I’ve had to take a breather over the holidays, too :-)) So I’ll look forward to your next posts, whenever you get the chance. Have a fabulous time in your travels, and happy new year!
Carmen